Wii U Stalled Work On Nintendo's "Key Titles" On Wii

New Console Hogging Time And Resources

Nintendo has been criticized as of late for its poor first-party content on their current home console, the Wii. We've seen very little in the way of AAA exclusives or chart-toppers, with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword the biggest game on the Wii's horizon. Speaking in a financial briefing, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata chalked the lack of compelling first-party software down to continuing work on the Wii U, the Wii's successor, which is set for release next year.

"In the first half of this year, however, we could not make the continuing sales of the first-party software released last year as we had planned," Iwata explains, in regards to the lack of "key new titles" on the Wii. "Nor, in the course of preparation of the next platform, could we release new key titles for the existing platform in a timely fashion due to completion delays until the latter half of this year."

Translation? Nintendo hasn't been able to make good on its promise of providing compelling exclusive content for the Wii as work on its successor, the Wii U, has snatched away too much time and resources from the central teams. Nintendo is regularly providing new development kits to external parties as production work continues to be refined, and their in-house team will no doubt be hard at work on launch titles to attract customers come launch.

But when will that be? Iwata revealed that Nintendo hopes to unveil the Wii U's "final format" at E3 2012, suggesting even they don't know the final specifications just yet. Iwata also confirmed that the Wii U will be released "during the next fiscal year", which runs from April 2012 to March 2013. So I wouldn't hold your breath just yet. [Nintendo]